RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 10 March 2016

RUSSIA IS WEAPONISING…. EVERYTHING. NATO commander Breedlove, a source of illumination on all things Putin, informs us that Russia is “weaponising” refugees in order to destabilise Europe. A strange word this “weaponising” which we now hear all the time; not exactly certain what it means but clearly it’s a bad thing. The good folks at MofA have taken the trouble to collect examples of Russian “weaponising” things and found that it’s quite a long list. Refugees, of course, and information too, but also weather and Photoshop. I am interested to learn that the word was actually around as early as 2007 and not specially invented after the coup in Kiev, as I had thought.

KADYROV. “My time in the post of head of Chechnya has ended“: presumably he will not run when his term expires next month. I am surprised: I thought Moscow was stuck with him for as long as he wanted to stay. He will, to put it mildly, have some input into who his successor is.